SINGAPORE. In our new series Moodie Davitt Video View, we bring you exclusive on-the-ground coverage from the most innovative brands in travel retail straight from the industry’s most important events.
In this edition, The Moodie Davitt Report Founder & Chairman Martin Moodie talks with Global Drinks Ltd (GDL) Founder & Managing Director Harry Kartasis during last month’s TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition in Singapore.
The Hong Kong-based entrepreneur set up the company in 2015 but it was not until 2020 that he left his former employer, Distell, and opened GDL as a brand agency. Today, the company focuses on four key business areas: brand management, account management, supply chain and customer service.
In a key component of its success to date, Global Drinks has become one of the leading logistic providers for liquor in the Hainan offshore duty free market.
This was the first time GDL has exhibited at the Singapore show and in this film Kartasis expresses how delighted he is with the company’s progress.
“It’s been an exciting year, particularly the last six months I would say, once Hong Kong started to open again. The most exciting thing for us is obviously we’ve got great brands. But the thing is we’re able to travel again; we’re able to get out and have these type of experiences.
“We’re doing well as a business. But to be here [in Singapore] and talk to yourself and talk to brand partners, customers and potential customers is fantastic. It’s something that we’re excited about and been waiting a long time for.”
Talking about the GDL portfolio, Kartasis says, “As a business, we didn’t want to have too much of the one category. So when we go with brand partners, we’re very strategic on who we want to partner up with. And we don’t want to be a company that has ten gins, ten vodkas, then different whiskies. So we’ve been very, very select.”
You can discover more about that portfolio in this short, fascinating film. ✈
